Digital Commons Network^™

Northwestern Mutual Strategic Audit, Eleazar Oceguera

Honors Theses

Northwestern Mutual is one of the largest financial advising firms in the US. It provides holistic financial advising, which includes life insurance, investments, and retirement planning. It is the largest life insurance provider and is top ten in investment planning. This report investigates the internal and external analysis of Northwestern Mutual business models and the strategies it has incorporated to sustain a competitive advantage in the constantly evolving wealth management sector. This report explicitly focuses on the life insurance sector of the business. There are two main tools used to analyze the external environment are Porter's Five Forces and the …

Arbor Day Foundation Programs: Analysis And Recommendations, Justin Myers, Emily Alston, Cameron Claborn, Charles Erker, Braelyn Isernhagen, Jonathan Jameson

Honors Theses

We are proposing the enhancement of the current Tree City USA program to include a special recognition program for high-achieving communities. These “Golden Oak” tree cities will be recognized each year based on a variety of metrics detailed in a new and more comprehensive program application. Recommendations:

● Updated application to include more information about both quantitative and qualitative insights

● Special recognition program awarding “Golden Oak” status to communities in village, town, city, and metropolis categories based on either percentile or benchmarking system

● A cumulative “Golden Oak” award given to the State that achieves the highest percentage of …

Zara Strategic Analysis, Jessica Ha

Honors Theses

Zara is the Spanish flagship store for one of the world's largest and most successful fashion retailers, Inditex. The brand is an overarching global clothing brand with thousands of in-store locations and presence in e-commerce. This strategic audit on Zara will take a deeper look into the company's business model and strategies through an external and internal analysis. The analytic tools: Porter's Five Forces, PESTEL, and SWOT analyses are utilized to understand the fashion retail industry's competitive environment and how Zara sustains its leadership through its niche in fast fashion. Strategic recommendations and implementation ideas are also extended with the …

Cohen And Milstein Strategic Analysis, Noah Marik

Honors Theses

Cohen Milstein is a medium-sized law firm operating out of six U.S. cities. It is a boutique-style firm specializing in niche areas of law and litigates higher-profile cases other firms avoid. This paper will examine Cohen and Milstein to understand its market position and competitiveness within the legal industry. The legal industry provides a unique set of challenges to firms as technology advances, new laws are imposed, and customer relationships evolve. To explore Cohen and Milstein, I will employ various tools, including Porter’s Five Forces, PESTEL, and SWOT analyses. Following the firm's evaluation through these metrics, strategic recommendations will be …

Amazon.Com, Inc Strategic Audit, Ningzhi Luo

Honors Theses

Amazon.com, Inc (Amazon) was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 as an online marketplace for books but later expanded to e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. This large variety of products and innovations has contributed to Amazon as one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world (Eugene Kim, 2018). This study would specifically focus on the e-commerce area and analyze Amazon's position in this market from an external and internal perspective by using three models: Porter's Five Forces, PESTEL, and the SWOT model. The report would identify Amazon's competitive advantages and the challenges it …

Strategic Audit Of Optum, Connor Crow

Honors Theses

Optum is a large American-based pharmacy benefit manager, healthcare consultant, healthcare delivery service, and business analytics corporation that has dominated the industry with sister-company UnitedHealthcare underneath the umbrella UnitedHealthGroup. This report seeks to understand through internal and external analyses how Optum’s business model and strategies have allowed them to gain and sustain competitive advantages in the everchanging, volatile environment of healthcare. Specific tools used to highlight this include Porter’s Five Forces, PESTEL, and SWOT analyses. Additionally, strategic recommendations are given for Optum’s next steps.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Strategic Audit, Jessica Salzar

Honors Theses

Berkshire Hathaway is an extremely successful, well-known company. With Warren Buffett approaching retirement, it is important that the company prepares its stakeholders and is strategically prepared. What must be determined is whether or not Berkshire Hathaway needs to implement a new strategy or continue doing what it is already doing. This strategic audit analyzes Berkshire Hathaway's company history, internal and external environment, competitive advantages, and organizational structure. After the analysis of Berkshire Hathaway, several strategy alternatives are considered, ending with a strategic recommendation, implementation plan, and contingency plan.

Strategic Framework Planning And Implementation, Eric Herr

Honors Theses

Strategic planning & management frameworks have no absolute rules, but most frameworks are guided by a variation on four common processes: analysis, strategy formulation, execution, and evaluation. In this research two methods for planning frameworks are presented and compared.

A Strategic Audit Of Tesla, Abigail Hoelzlhammer

Honors Theses

This strategic audit will examine the problems Tesla is currently facing, do a Porter’s Five Forces analysis of the company, review environmental factors affecting Tesla, state Tesla’s current strategy, evaluate their distinguishing resources and competitive advantages, and end with a strategic recommendation along with implementation requirements.

One of Tesla’s vehicles crashed in March 2018 while on autopilot, which caused their stock to drop significantly. They’re also experiencing issues with the production of the new Model 3. The current political situation and growing demand for the parts Tesla needs are environmental factors that are having a negative effect. On the other …